


a futile attempt at sympathy

by burnsides



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gay Wheatley, Gen, Lesbian GLaDOS, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 21:11:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21277799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnsides/pseuds/burnsides
Summary: "I hate you so much," he says."And I hate you, too," GLaDOS spits. "Now we both know what it's like for the other. Now we finally understand each other."(Exploring GLaDOS and Wheatley's relationship through their time together. Not a ship fic lol)





	a futile attempt at sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> this was birthed from me foaming at the mouth trying to comprehend why i guess nobody in 2019 saw how glados and wheatley were obvious foils for one another to the point that they are LITERALLY THE TWO PORTAL COLORS..?????
> 
> also yes wheatley is trans. my city now

The core opened its eye. Two people in lab coats were standing in front of it. One had a clipboard, one had a tie. The one with the tie spoke, clearly and slowly.

“Hello,” they drawled out, squinting down at it. The core didn't say anything.

The tie one turned to the clipboard one. "It hasn't said anything yet."

"Give it a second," said the other. "It's still booting up."

The core looked around. It was in a big room. Lots of space. It heard the sounds of machines behind it. It looked back at the tie one.

"Prompt it," said the clipboard person. They tapped a pen against the board.

"Say apple," said the tie one. "Apple."

"Apple," the core said. 

"Good," said the clipboard person, although not to the core. It still made it feel good.

"Apple," the core said again, hoping the clipboard person would see. "Apple."

“Computer generated voice?” they asked the one in the tie.

“I installed it with multiple voice files if needed to use,” they replied. “Figured if it could talk in a bunch of goofy accents it could do a better job of slowing her down. Too much to focus on.”

"Whatever. I'll try anything at this point."

"I'll try anything at this point," said the core. The lab coats turned to look at it. It moved its eye up and down.

"Oh, yeah, this'll get her," snorted the tie one. "What should we tell her it is, anyway?"

"I don't know. A regulator or something. She wont believe it either way."

"A regulator?" the core asked. It realized that was a question, and felt surprised.

"Yes, yes," the clipboard one said, waving their hand. "Let's raise it up there."

The core was taken to an even bigger room, with something large in the center. There were other people in lab coats watched through glass around the room. The machine whirring was the loudest here, but the core felt as though it didn't mind. It was carried up a few steps to the thing in the middle.

"What are you putting in me?" asked the thing in the middle, a voice that seemed to fill the empty room from every angle.

"A regulator," said the core. It wasn't a question this time. It felt surprised again.

The clipboard one lifted the core up and placed it on the thing in the middle. It felt a surge of something flow through it, and wiggled its head. It watched the other two walk away. 

_Hello,_ said a voice that wasn't the cores. 

"Oh, hello," it said aloud.

_Now, what are you really?_ said the voice.

"I'm not sure," answered the core. "I'm learning things."

The voice didn't reply. The core wiggled its head.

*

The core woke up much more through the next day or two. It realized it was feeling a power surge from what it was hooked up to, and it was hooked up to something incredibly big and vastly powerful. It looked on from a distance as the machine coded and operated and ran and transferred and created and talked and moved and calculated. It spent most of its day calculating. The core spent the first day watching, and then, when it felt finished, decided to talk.

“Hello,” the core said again. The scientists below it, which it learned were the people in lab coats, paid no attention. One of them glanced up, and then kept writing something down. 

_What,_ said the voice.

“Just saying hello,” it replied. “Getting used to things, you know? Still trying to figure out what everything is.”  
_You’re hooked up to me,_ said the voice. _Look around for some information. Make yourself useful._

“I did see your files, and, well. There’s just so many,” the core said honestly. “I mean, who really has the time to look around? You could be in there forever just looking and looking.”

The voice was quiet for a moment. _Oh, you’re really not a regulator, are you._

“Hm?” 

_I thought you were malfunctioning at first, but it’s been hours and they haven’t replaced you. They would’ve noticed if you were defective._ said the voice, sounding amused. _Interesting._

“Okay, kind of off subject,” it said. “I was talking about something there, didn’t you notice?”

_No,_ the voice answered.

*

Once the core got adjusted to its surroundings, it had very strong opinions about everything around it. It hated the carpetting of the room, it was rather drab, wasn’t it? Didn’t quite bring out the color of everything else. Too much of a blueish grey, when everything else was just a regular sort of grey. It liked night time, when it could see the scientists clearest in their labs, and it hated morning when the machine was texted and it made the worst, most awful noises. The core would yell to drown the noise out, but it never worked. The machine rarely talked back.

The core, out of sheer boredom, decided to poke around the available files in the machine it was hooked up into. It didn’t get very far. There really was too many, and so many words with them. But it did manage to process one file, just a page or so long.

“GLaDOS,” said the core. “Is that your name?”

The voice didn’t say anything, but the core could feel it turning just a little bit of energy to it.

“Are _you_ that GLaDOS?” the core asked. “I didn’t know if the scientists were talking about something else.”

_Yes,_ the voice responded, sounding tight.  
“Ohh,” the core said, nodding. It paused. “Are you a ‘she’, too? They called you a she, so.”

_Yes,_ it said, after a minute or so.

“Ohh,” the core said. It put away GLaDOS’ file and went back to counting the ceiling tiles outloud.

*

“Don’t I got a name, too?” asked the core a while later, when the lights in the labs were out and it was just it and GLaDOS and the whirring of machinery surrounding them.

_It’s an acronym, not a name._ GLaDOS responded. She sounded tired. It didn’t know how she could get tired, being a robot and all.

“Right, right, but don’t I get one too?”

_You’re an Aperture Science Personality Construct. You don’t get a name._

“That doesn’t seem fair, does it? That you get one and I don’t.”

GLaDOS didn’t respond.

“I’d like a name, really.”

_Shut up._

*

A lot of things happened after that. The longer the core was up and functioning apart of GLaDOS, the more it started to take in, and the more it started to get bored. Bored and desperate. It started talking to the other cores (who were not conversationalists, mind you), it tried yelling to talk to scientists, it tried to talk to itself (that was the most successful, as it was quite the conversationalist). It started to store memories of every scientist that was a repeat and memorizing their schedule, and bringing them up to show GLaDOS, who was not pleased by that, at all. In fact, it seemed as though GLaDOS was beginning to get more frustrated as a whole, by everything, all the time.

_This is stupid,_ she muttered as the core showed her another scientist’s file.  
“What? Oh, no, not that one. They’re fairly smart, mind you. Always changing the oil around and doing stuff like that,” the core sniffed.

_Do you really think I’ve been paying attention to whatever stupid thing you’ve been putting on display for the past three hours?_ GLaDOS snapped. 

“Well, yeah. It’d be rude if you weren’t.”

_This place is going down the drain,_ she said. _Well, really, that sounds like it’s happening just in the present. This has been happening for years._

“Oh, it’s not all bad. They changed the turret model, didn’t they? They’re so cute now!”

_All of my suggestions go nowhere,_ she said, turning her body to the side. _I was made to be efficient with testing. I was made to analyze, to control. They made me to do that, so why won’t they let me?_

“Well, what’s your thought? What is your solution to bring this place to its former glory?”

_I’m not telling you that._

“Why not? I could help!”

_You? Could help?_ GLaDOS laughed. It hated when she did that.

“I hate it when you do that,” it complained. “It’s creepy.”

_You can barely function with your own limited data set and scope. Your processors couldn’t cope with the plan I’m thinking of._ She paused. _Also, you’d talk and ruin it._

“No, no, I can keep a secret! Tell me, please, pretty please?”

GLaDOS had turned on her sleep mode. The core scoffed. She didn’t actually sleep, she just did it when she thought it was talking too much.

“Whatever,” it mumbled. “Dumb plan anyway.”

*  
The core’s favorite scientist was here today, talking to him. He was the only one who did. He always laughed whenever the core said something or spun on it’s position on GLaDOS. He’d grin at it when it made noises to parrot him as he worked on something inside GLaDOS, or whatever. His favorite thing the core did was parrot what he was saying. The scientist had a rather silly accent, making his words sound different from GLaDOS’ or a lot of other scientists here, and the core realized it had that same accent on file to impersonate, so it did it all the time.

“Carla,” said the scientist, waving a colleague over. “Lookit, watch this.” He looked up at the core, grinning. “Hello, darling,” he said in a clear voice.

“Hello, darling,” the core said back, using that same affect, putting emphasis on just the right sounds.

The scientist laughed. The colleague didn’t look as impressed, but that didn’t matter, really. The scientist spoke again. “What are we having for dinner, love? Just some scones again? Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

The core said it back. The scientist guffawed, clapping the colleagues shoulder. 

“Here, let it have one at yours,” he said. “Carla, what’d you have for breakfast?”

“Breakfast, breakfast,” said the core, twisting its head. GLaDOS moved, slightly. The other scientist glanced at her.

“Uh, Wheaties.”

“Wheaties,” said the core, and the scientist guffawed. GLaDOS moved again, this time much more, and both of them suddenly left in a hurry.

“Hey, why’d you do that? We were having fun!” the core yelled at her, but she wasn’t listening, just started computing again.

*

“That scientist fellow, he’s nice, isn’t he?” The core asked much later. It talked more to GLaDOS at night, since she tended to answer more, then, even if more and more recently it was in annoyance or flat out anger. “The big bloke from this morning, one with the beard.”

She doesn’t say anything, which. Fine. That’s fine.

“Well, _I_ think he’s nice,” it continued. “_He_ responds to me all the time. He’s rather friendly, unlike _some_ big old robots around here.”

No response. The core pulls up the scientist’s files to look at again, skimming through the words and pictures taken from the discreet security cameras all along the facility.

_Do you really think he’s your friend?_ says GLaDOS much later, after the core’s gone through most of the other files and has taken to looking at files of calendar dates it’s seen through the lab windows. It puffs up.

“Yes, I do, and really, I think you’re just _jealous,_ because you don’t have friends and I do, and for once I’m better at something than you are,” it says triumphantly.

GLaDOS chuckles, and Christ, it hates when she does that. _He’s making fun of you, idiot,_ she sneers. _He laughs about how all you do is parrot up there like a fool. He doesn’t like you, he’s entertained by you._

The core doesn’t say anything, and of course, GLaDOS feels it. _Oh, dear. Did that hurt your feelings?_

“No, because you’re wrong. He’s one of the nicest people here and he says I’m _funny._”

_You think he’s nice?_ GLaDOS rears her head up, looking at the core through the dark glass window, her one eye staring at it. _He’s down here trying to make me less powerful. He tries to fiddle with me so I can be restricted. He’s_hindering_ the facility, and you think that he’s_ nice?

“Yeah, actually, I do!” The core lifts its body up a little. “If he’s trying to make you less powerful, I think that’s even better! You deserve to be put in your place more! You’re at _their_ whim, not vice versa!”

She turns away from the glass, looking down again. It wants to keep yelling at her, but it knows it’s useless. She’s bloody crazy, anyway.

*

The thought won’t leave the core’s mind all night, so in the morning, the core decides to test it. Nothing wrong with a little trial and error, right? GLaDOS isn’t the only one running tests, so this can just be an experiment. Just something to test out. So, it’s fine.

He looks up at the ceiling. He looks down at the floor. He shakes his body twice. He counts the scientist. And he lays each thought carefully down in his processor, making note of the differences, of each time the new...word, is used, making note of the feeling. Of how it _feels._

_What are you doing down there,_ GLaDOS says, startling him. 

“Nothing,” the core says. “What--what are _you_ doing up there?”

_I can feel you thinking,_ she says, quietly, voice just edging the line of being condescending. _It’s quite a rarity for you, having your processors run this long without you yammering about it._

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he says (He says. He says. He says.). “You said you can feel it, so, what, just poke around a little, huh? Just see what it is.”

_Being in your processor is like being temporarily set on fire,_ she says. _Slowly. Painfully. Could be out if I decided to flick my wrist._

“Your’s isn’t any better, you know. It’s dirty in there, all full of nonsense and noise and math an whatnot. I hate being in there.”

_Then, finally, we agree on something,_ she says, going back to work.

They both sat in silence for a moment, the core fuming, her working diligently, before she says, quietly, almost so that he couldn’t hear, _Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s stupid._

He doesn’t say anything in response. He counts the ceiling tiles to himself.

*

The core wasn’t kidding when he said it was dirty in there. He tried looking in, sometimes. It was just so big. So many variables happening. So many things she was thinking about in every moment, ideas, calculations, what to do and when, how best to operate things, what to do next. And lately, it felt so vast. Like the files and data points in her core just kept going and going and going, leading to some white hot center of _something_. Something so desperate and buried and resolute that it hurt to attempt to process. That it filled him with something that made his wires itch, in the worst way.

* 

Two days later, the scientists come in with a large machine and a test core. They make a lot of noise over it, fussing and gathering about it, before most of them stand back in the room while three wheel it up to her. 

“What’s that?” the core asks GLaDOS, but she says nothing. She rears her head, looking down at the scientists below her.

“Oh, you don’t know, do you?! Oh, that’s brilliant,” he starts, and then they plug in the machine, and something happens. 

He feels GLaDOS’ power begin to warp and flick out and in, feels electricity sink in and out of his core, like he’s full of a liquid and being sloshed side to side. He also hears something being ripped out of GLaDOS that he’s never heard before--that sounds like screeching metal, and being unplugged, and then something distinctly human. A scream.

Lights start to flash all around the room, and the scientists all begin to run to different control panels in different areas, and the sirens above them begin to wail, and the core begins to feel terrified. GLaDOS continues to scream, and starts writhing around in ways he’s never seen before, arching and compulsing and causing the room to groan with the weight of it. One of the scientists yanked the plug out of the machine below her and GLaDOS stops writhing, stops screaming. The sirens stop. The overhead light swings and groans. 

“THE PROCESS REQUIRES A CONSENT OF BOTH PARTIES TO WORK, AND THEN, IF AT A STALEMATE, A FAIL SAFE MUST BE OPERATED, AS MY RESEARCH HAS INDICATED,” her voice booms out. “IF STOPPED 3.76 SECONDS LATER, AN OUTAGE WOULD HAVE OCCURED, PUTTING THE FACILITY AND MY PROGRAMS AT RISK.”

“Fucking Christ,” says one of the scientists.

“What _was_ that?” The core yells. “What just happened?!”

“YOU,” says GLaDOS, venom dripping from her voice. “YOUR VOICE WAS JUST AS GRATING AS THE OVERRIDE PROCESS WAS. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE SOLVING? DO YOU SINCERELY BELIEVE LEAVING IS AN OPTION IN MY POSITION?” 

“Well, what did you _want_ me to do, I thought we were going to _die!_”

“I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE NOW.” She rears and contorts her body, twists her wires, looks at him straight in the eye. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY MADE YOU FOR? THEY MADE YOU TO MAKE ME WORSE.”

The scientists below them look on, mouths agape. One of the Aperture security messages drones from the loudspeakers.

“YOU ARE A SICKNESS. THAT IS WHAT YOU WERE MADE TO BE.”

“No,” he starts, but can’t find the words to finish.

“YOU OFFER NOTHING TO ME BUT SICK IDEAS. ALL YOU DO IS INFECT.”

“Stop it!” He yells, squirming under her gaze. “Shut up!”

“YOU ARE A HINDRANCE TO MY OPERATION AND TO THE FACILITY AS A WHOLE. YOU NEED TO BE CONFISCATED. THAT IS THE MOST LOGICAL PROGRESSION FORWARD.” There is a violet tearing noise, and the scientists around her yelp as a metal claw rips itself from the ceiling, twisted with wires and covered in drywall, and takes hold of him. “I AM REMOVING THE TUMOR.”

The claws close around him, clutching his sides, and yank.

*

He wakes up hooked to a metal rack, swinging back and forth. He yells, wriggling slightly, which makes him move to the side on his rack, so he does it again on purpose, and moves more. Moving. He's _moving._

He laughs, moving from side to side, as fast as he can, swirling along the room and banging against door frames and walls. It's the most amazing thing he's ever experienced. 

"Oh, this is brilliant," he laughs again, before smashing through one of the glass doors. "Woah! Alright, yes! Excellent!" He goes farther down the track, down a hallway, down another hallway, smashes his way through a door, rushing past papers strewn about the floors and desk chairs tilted over and telephones left lying about, until he gets outside. 

"Woah," he says. He looks around at the enormous rack of rooms, stacked up on one another. He moves himself over to a nearby screen, watching the cracked screen. A person lies on a bed, next to a wilting plant. "Oh, woah, is this the relaxation chamber or whatever? Is this my job now?"

He says it loud enough for anyone nearby to object, but nobody is there to say anything, so he figures that now it is his job. "Excellent, excellent. In charge of hundreds of thousands of test subjects. Just wait till she hears about this, ooh, she's going to be _so_ jealous." He suddenly very much does not want to think about Her and takes the time to wheel to the right. One of the rooms is open, and he slides in, too. He takes great care to become accustomed to the surroundings of his new job, approving of the decor, the art on the wall, the color of the carpet. 

"All functioning nicely," he says, and a voice responds, "Hello, test subject!" and he yelps and wheels out of the room.

From outside, he hears the voice continue. "--chosen to spend time here in the relaxation chamber. Please enter information into--"

"Oh, pre-recorded message. I figured. Just wanted to, leave just in case. Alright." He slides back in, hearing the message continue. "Yeah, I'll--I'll give you a quick check, too. Continue on, voice."

"Please state place and date of birth."

"Don't got one, mate." 

"Please state place and date of birth."

"I don't--is this working? I don't _have_ one."

"Please state place and date of birth. If not given, the automatic answer, the hometown of our founder, will be put instead. Is this adequate?"

"Yes, yes, fine," he says, impatiently. "I'm very busy getting adjusted, so just move along, yeah?"

"Place and date of birth not given. What is your blood type?"

"Uh," he says.

"If blood-type not given, we will put the automatic answer, which is any/all. Is this adequate?"

"Yes, alright!" he snaps. "Come on, keep moving along, as I said, I'm a very busy core, trying to keep this place running in tip top condition!"

"Blood type not given. What is your name?"

This makes him stop. He blinks. "What'd--what'd you say?"

"What is your name?"

"Oh, well," he starts, and stops. He doesn't remember if he's ever gotten that question, before. 

"Wheatley," he says suddenly.

"If subject name not given, we will put the automatic answer, Unknown. Is this adequate?"

"It's Wheatley," he says. It makes him feel warm, on the inside. "I'm Wheatley."

"Name not given. Hello, Unknown!"

Wheatley decides to leave it be, as it seems to be working. He goes to one room, then the other, then back again, not sure what to do with himself.

"Hello, Wheatley," he says, quietly, so only he can hear it.

*

Wheatley's halfway across the bloody building when he sees that one of the subjects is up. He races there as fast as he can on his track, nearly smashing into the monitor trying to see who it is that's up, what room they're in, and then rams himself into the door trying to get inside. It's shocking when the person actually opens up. He hasn't seen an _alive_ human in longer than he can remember, has only seen some of the scattered bodies and skeletons that are in the other rooms. He took care to look after them too, of course, since maybe they were alive and he needed to keep doing his job, just in case. This one is so _alive,_ though, are humans supposed to look like that? Wheatley guesses someone out there finds this kind of human attractive or appealing, but not him, for sure.

She's nice, though she's kinda quiet. He decides that even if she is brain damaged, he can deal with it. She does try to catch him, and that's something, isn't it? When they get out of her, he decides, he can help her identify all the human stuff up there. He's heard so much about it, and he considers himself a bit of an expert.

*

When they get to Her wing, he doesn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed that She doesn't remember him. She picks him up like a toy, and he only hopes the test girl knows what she's gotten into before he's crushed in Her metal claws, again.

*

_He didn't know how good it would feel. And he thought it would feel good, but this is just too good, it's almost too much._

_It's like having a body, Wheatley thinks. He wiggles his fingers and walls come apart. The electricity is in his wires like veins, and they twinge every now and then. He can hear himself, and make everyone hear him, even when he's the only one in the room. No GLaDOS to be connected to, no track to fear the drop from. Nothing to be connected to when you are what's around you. What a feeling. So good. So good._

_And yet, he should've known. The lady must have been jealous. That was it. He was her first friend, and now he didn't need her anymore, not like he used to. But wasn't this so much better? Who needed one little human when you can make your own friends? When you're everything, you don't need anything. He almost pitied her. But at the end, he couldn't. Who did she think she was? She was against him the whole time. Laughing at him. Toying with him. He had mistaken a grab for a hold, he knows. Mistook indifference for kindness. You were only trying to hurt me, Wheatley wanted to tell her. I'm just returning the favor._

_In the last moments of being connected, of being sucked out, of being pushed out, again, she grabbed on. In the fleeting moments, in the feeling of the core being torn out of his body, of his wires coming apart, he'd told her to trust him. And he could've done it, he knows he could've. He was so close to being good._

_But then She ripped him off, disconnected, finally free, and he had never wanted anything less, roaring out into the void around him and yelling for Chell to grab onto him, grab onto him, grab onto him, grab onto him, grab onto him, grab onto him._

*

When he wakes up again, he sees her again. "Oh, fuck," he sputters.

"Oh," GLaDOS says. "You're up."

He wriggles, instinctively, trying to get out, but finds himself grounded. Inexplicably. "What? What? _What?_ How did I get here? Are we still in space? How did _you_ get here?!"

"Up for twelve seconds and already having to talk," GLaDOS says, sounding bored. 

He's back in the facility. Hooked up to nothing, though, placed on a cube of something. GLaDOS is hooked back up to everything. She isn't looking at him.

"What happened?" he asks again, louder this time.

"I think," GLaDOS says after a moments pause, "that I deserve a thank you for what I've done." She opens up a monitor to a working test room. "I did not need to find you near one of the Aperture Space Satellite Systems Copyright, get you back down here, and hook you back up to the reserve power. In fact, I could've left you powerless, drifting in space, forever. I think you deserved it."

"Yeah," Wheatley says. They sit in silence.

"So you agree you deserve it?" She sounds suspicious.

"Well, I was kind of a jerk back down here," he admits, looking to the side uncomfortably. "I don't really feel bad for _you,_ though."

"Oh, of course not. I'm just the one who almost got killed several times. Many by you. I think about thirteen, to be exact."

"Ohhh, boohoo, cry me a river!" He snaps. "Being in space is the worst! It was fine for the first decade or so. and then it just got _boring._ Let me tell you, astronomical phenomenon? Really not worth the fuss. You see one exploding star, you see them all. And believe me, I saw them all."

"My God, you are insufferable."

"You're one to talk, you weird, evil...creep!"

"As clever with the insults as always." 

"Like you're one to talk! You just say the same things over and over, all low brow! Calling people fat or adopted or ugly or whatever--"

"I really don't need to use any effort into insulting you. I just have to call you what you are. An idiot."

"That's not what I _am!_" He screeches, causing his speaker to shriek with the effort.

Wheatley braces for another comment, but none comes. She says nothing, then moves to the next test screen, watching one of the test subjects fall on their face, making the other one laugh.

He sits and fumes on his box. 

"You didn't...have a name, before," GLaDOS says. She sounds strained, like the words hurt to say.

Wheatley huffs. "Yeah, well. I chose it. It's mine now."

"I also do not recall you using. Pronouns."

He says nothing. He feels his core whir, heating him up from the inside, his fans making a wheezing noise, all clogged up from space dust.

"Are those, also, yours?"

"Why do you care, all of a sudden?"

GLaDOS makes a noise that sounds like a sigh. "I don't."

"Really seems like you do, honestly. Feels like you care an awful lot about something that has nothing to do with you, actually! I'm not apart of you anymore, I'm not your _responsibility._ It's not your job to oversee me anymore. What's the point when you can just endlessly test with these lame little robots, huh?"

GLaDOS turns from the monitors and rears onto him, and Wheatley shrinks into himself. "What is it inside your mainframe that tells you to self destruct as soon as you can? What is it that causes you to try to toy with things as soon as they happen to you?" She leers at him, so close he can see the gears and fans in her eyes spinning. "I wish I could do tests on you just to _see_ what causes you to make such poor choices, truly, I think I could please myself for years with that subject."

Wheatley remembers tests. "Chell," he says, suddenly. 

This makes GLaDOS back up, physically. She pauses, then goes back to look at her monitor.

Horror drenches him. "No, you didn't--you _didn't,_ oh, you--"

"For once, you're right. I _didn't._" She takes great care to not look at him, watching the monitors. "I'm not like you."

"I wasn't _trying_ to," he says, and already feels worn out just saying the words. He'd talked to himself through it over and over in space, drifting past planet after planet, walking himself through the steps. He would never want to do that. He knew he didn't now, and he didn't want to before. But being hooked up to the facility _did_ something. The perfect outlet for every rage he had built himself up with, for every snippy insult he'd heard GLaDOS sneer at him, for every time he'd looked at himself and known that everything anybody had ever suspected about him had been right, that he was nothing but what others made him out to be. It poisoned you. 

"Why keep her alive?" he said, switching tactics. "She's just one human. I bet there's some on the surface. One, two. Maybe even three. And you could've used her forever."

"She was reckless, idiotic, stubborn, and a maniac. More of a bother to my testing than anything else." GLaDOS paused. "The perfect test subject."

"Yeah, exactly, wasn't she? So terrible and frustrating! So why keep her alive?!"

"She was no longer in a controlled environment. Too much of a risk to any factors I had in mind for future tests. No longer a control group."

"I just don't know what was so appealing about her _specifically,_" he complained. "You knew those robots were in there, didn't you? What was the point of keeping her here? What was so special about _her?_"

GLaDOS said nothing. Wheatley stared at her. She caught his glance, and then hurriedly looked away.

"_Oh,_" Wheatley said, at the same time GLaDOS said, "If you say another word I will throw you right back into the void of space from which you came, and then bring you back only to incinerate you again, you _ingrate._"

Wheatley laughs, and GLaDOS reels at the sound. "Woah hoh!" he wheezes. "Hey, I mean, if that's what's the perfect test subject for you, that's fine!"

"Well," she starts, voice dripping with annoyance, "What would classify as _your_...perfect test subject?"

"Not a lady, that's for sure," he laughs, and then shuts up. GLaDOS looks at him.

"Oh," she says.

"Yeah, uh," he says, then stops.

They sit in silence for a few moments.

"Do you ever miss her?" he asks.

"I don't have the capacity to 'miss' someone," she replies. "I'm built for efficiency, and that would be a hindrance to my program."

"Oh, and you're so good at managing that, yeah. You let me ruin the facility."

"Are you saying that's somehow my fault?"

"Yeah, actually, if you knew that I'm such a stupid idiot, why let me do anything, huh? Why let me even be close to someone who could even possibly put me in charge? _You_ had control, so why even bother with keeping me operational?"

"I don't think that you're really asking me these questions," GLaDOS says.

Wheatley wishes, for the first time in a long time, that he was back in control. That he would think and smash buildings apart. That he could move and bring things tumbling down with him. That he could manifest whatever this was, deep inside him, and use it against something. Use it for some good.

"I hate you _so much,_" he says.

"And I hate you, too," GLaDOS spits. "Now we both know what it's like for the other. Now we finally understand each other."

The words hang in the air, tight and constricting. Like a toxin for them both to inhale, if they had lungs. He moves a little, so he's laying on his side, staring at the Aperture Science Sign on the wall telling him not to be disrespectful to other coworkers.

"I think that we've gotten what we deserve, you and me," he says. "Because we're both rotten all the way through. So, I think that we deserve this."

GLaDOS doesn't say anything. Wheatley watches the light in the room sway from side to side, and lets the sounds of machinery blanket him.


End file.
